Twitter Updates

July 2017

July 29, 2017

Pressure is mounting on the Labour Party frontbench to refocus on opposing Brexit. Ganging up on Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn is not likely to help deliver a positive result. There is a more pressing imperative - the Tories. It is Labour's job in opposition to wrong-foot the Tories and force a fresh General Election as quickly as possible. There has been an unnecessarily prolonged period of Labour front-bench Brexit-babbling which left Remainers like me frustrated and baffled. Why should Labour want to side with the hardliners in UKIP and the Conservative Party?

Corbyn's mistake following the EU referendum result was to fail to recognise the Brexit project was doomed from the outset and respond accordingly. Many Labour 'worthies' criticised his alleged lukewarm role in the campaign. As a democratic socialist, I thought he judged the mood of the electorate extraordinarily well. He was not prepared to brush issues with the way the EU has developed and its institutions have evolved under the carpet. However, dreams of socialism in one country have no place in a 21st century democratic socialist party in Western Europe.

Labour euro-scepticism played a vital role in enabling Labour to make remarkable gains in the snap general election called by Tory Prime Minister Theresa May for 8 June just passed. The manifesto may have helped. But the section on Brexit was written entirely from a prospective governmental standpoint. While Labour denied the Tories an overall majority, the Tories are still in government. That is why Labour must reshape its thinking. Excessive weight is being placed by the Labour leadership on the 'will of the British people'. It is not the majority view and never was that the UK should leave the European Union - that is a UKIP fiction embraced by both May and, sadly, Corbyn. Corbyn needs a fresh narrative to question the Tories far more rigorously.

July 11, 2017

Reflecting on this elegant prose that is the section of the Labour Party Manifesto 2017 concerning Brexit, one fact screams out - Labour did not win the June 2017 election. Labour's bold ambition set out in the first paragraph (see below) needs to be recast in the light of May's reckless attempts to hold on to power:

Labour accepts the referendum result and a Labour government will put the national interest first. We will prioritise jobs and living standards, build a close new relationship with the EU, protect workers’ rights and environmental standards, provide certainty to EU nationals and give a meaningful role to Parliament throughout negotiations.

The national interest ought to be paramount. Every government utterance needs to be assessed by Labour in that context, rather than the opening words of the paragraph:

Labour accepts the referendum result

Those words were entirely appropriate ahead of the June election, given the febrile state of public opinion, a hostile media, and fearful Labour backbenchers whose voters had sided with the Brexiteers.

The uppermost question is whether Labour's leadership can recognise the new political reality?

July 08, 2017

UK politics: is a return to two dominant parties unthinkable?

Looking at the latest opinion polls, odds for political betting on seats in the next UK Parliament (note: not Westminster) the odds on a return to 2-party politics must be very long indeed. My own political life was shaped by simplistic descriptions of the ideologies of the two main parties in the UK. Conservatives/Tories stand for selfishness and greed. Labour stands for sharing and collective action.

One Nation Toryism forged out of experience post World War II recogognised that the old order shaped by the aristocracy was finished. But the nouveaux riches had other ideas. A succession of events starting in the early 1970s led to a neo-conservative project for the self-enrichment of the few and the recovery of baronial powers to subjugate the rest of us to a modern form of serfdom.

Spelling that out is Labour's challenge in 2015.

Green politics is a distraction. Any self-respecting Labour politician recognises that the planet is at risk from the selfishness of the 1%. Urgent steps are promised by Labour to tackle climate change. But it is not enough. Neither is the response to nationalism.

Much patriotic cant has been breathed by a deepening sense in the devolved nations of betrayal byWestminster governments past and present.

A return of UK government in May under Labour could be the key to whether two-party politics ever makes a return.

July 02, 2017

Labour's leader Jeremy Corbyn wants members to decide who will be their prospective parliamentary candidate at the next General Election. Given the Tories inability to govern that opportunity might not be far away. Reactions to Ian Lavery MP's recent pronouncements suggest that the age of entitlement in the Labour Party is not over (yet). Let me untangle these issues.

Ahead of the shock, surprise May 2017 General Election, Labour was so ill-prepared that the NEC took upon itself the power to select candidates. Serial rebel MPs in the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) were given a 'Get out of Jail' card. However much local disquiet to a sitting MP standing again for re-election - tough. Labour's rebels have much to thank Tory PM Theresa May for her decision to call a snap election. Their candidacy was safe. Though in some isolated places previously safe Labour seats were lost.

With the Tories in disarray over how to govern (full stop), never mind Brexit, the prospects of another General Election in 2017 require decisive action on the part of Labour CLPs and the NEC. The mantra is that nothing can be done without the authority of the NEC. I find that jobsworth approach utterly depressing. The Labour Party needs candidates in place for both local, regional and national elections much earlier than has been common practice.

National contingency planning needs to focus on the full panoply of opportunity - national, regional, local and, dare I add, European elections. If the NEC is unable to provide detailed guidance ahead of the July meeting cycle for local parties, IMHO CLPs should get on and ask the June 2017 PPCs whether they wish to stand again. In the absence of an acceptable 'sitting candidate', then CLPs should invite expressions of interest and enable all their members to take part in a selection process.

This may mean some ruffling of feathers among Labour MPs with an inflated sense of entitlement, tough. Members are entitled to decide. It is in the rules. What is the problem? Oh, yes - entitlement. Well, sorry peeps, it's time to get real.